Wednesday, June 28, 2017

No need for DoJ to ask Malaysia’s help, says Tony Pua

KUALA LUMPUR : There is no need for the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) to seek assistance from Malaysia on the 1MDB civil suits, says Tony Pua.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP said that Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali should also not be complaining about any lack of request from the DoJ, when he had previously rejected the request of Switzerland’s attorney-general Micheal Lauber, for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) on investigations into 1MDB.

“When the Swiss AG requested assistance from the Malaysia government, he (Apandi) did not provide any assistance.

“So why are they complaining about DoJ not asking for assistance,” Pua said at a press conference in parliament today.

He said that there was no need for the US DoJ to seek aid from Malaysia as the transactions using money allegedly embezzled from 1MDB, took place in the United States and hence, the investigations were conducted there.

Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad of Amanah meanwhile requested that Apandi brush up on his legal terms and not give political responses to legal issues.

He was referring to Apandi’s reasoning that since the DoJ never made a formal application to the Malaysian Attorney-General’s Chambers to obtain further information about 1MDB funds, that their actions must have been “political in nature”.

Apandi also said he believed the DoJ’s action was based on information provided by a handful of Malaysians.

In its court filing in California on June 5, the DoJ sought to seize US$540 million (RM2.3 billion) in assets, including art works, jewellery, a luxury yacht and film rights purchased with funds allegedly embezzled from 1MDB.

The assets named in the applications included the film rights to two movies, “Dumb and Dumber To” starring Jim Carrey and “Daddy’s Home” featuring Will Ferrell.

The action follows last July’s civil forfeiture suit by the DoJ which sought to recover all the assets including but not limited to the Park Lane Hotel in New York, a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, condominiums in New York, a private jet and expensive works of art, as well as finances related to Martin Scorsese’s movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. -FMT